


Both In Silence, Wide-Eyed

by beepalais



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Blow Jobs, Coda, Episode Tag, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:12:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepalais/pseuds/beepalais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> When it was all over, no one quite knew what to do. Up until then, there had been a plan--as tenacious and fragile as it was, it had still been there. Reconvene, clean the weapon, get the body, buy the lighter fluid, burn the corpse, destroy the evidence, destroy the evidence, destroy the evidence. And now, with the weapon cleaned, the corpse burned, the evidence destroyed, they all lingered around the charred ashes of wood and branch and what was formerly their law professor’s husband. </i> <br/> <br/>The body is burned, and now all that's left is to live with it. Connor and Wes find that they aren't very good at doing that alone. Coda to 1x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both In Silence, Wide-Eyed

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, finally done! Glad I was able to get this finished up before tomorrow's episode so I can throw out some theorizing before I get totally jossed. Big ups to [Austin](http://kawaiiju.tumblr.com), [Shay](http://hugoleclercqs.tumblr.com) , and [Molly](http://queerstevenrogers.tumblr.com) for beta and encouragement.

When it was all over, no one quite knew what to do. Up until then, there had been a plan--as tenacious and fragile as it was, it had still been there. Reconvene, clean the weapon, get the body, buy the lighter fluid, burn the corpse, destroy the evidence, destroy the evidence, destroy the evidence. And now, with the weapon cleaned, the corpse burned, the evidence destroyed, they all lingered around the charred ashes of wood and branch and what was formerly their law professor’s husband. Wes remembers his advisor at Penn State, a heavy set, balding white guy who wore stained khaki trousers and the most horrible condescending smirk on his face when Wes told him he was applying to Middleton. Wes wonders what he would think of him now.

“So what’s next?” Laurel asks meekly, her chin buried in her heavy scarf. The smoke from the fire makes all of them tear up and she rubs at her eye with the heel of one hand. Laurel lives with her sister all the way in Wister--she’s got to catch a bus and then a train and another bus to get home, and Wes’ heart sinks at that for some reason, the image of Laurel waiting for the bus alone in the middle of the night, sitting in the cold, shaking.

“I’ve got to get home.” Michaela says, white-knuckling her phone in one hand. “Kate’s wondering where I am.”

“Where does she think you are now?” Connor asks, with his cross examination voice on. It’s unintentional, but Michaela gives him a heavy look anyway.

“She just knows I’m out with you three. I didn’t think…wasn’t planning for—“ she lamely gestures her gloved hand at the remains of their pyre. Wes gets it. She wasn’t prepared for this, none of them were. He left his apartment tonight thinking they were going to dinner. How could he ever have predicted this?

“Michaela—“ Now Connor’s back to nice, supportive defense lawyer mode, the good consul/ bad consul switch within him still so seamless to Wes, who, of all people, should be used to it by now. “She’ll cover for you, yeah?”

“Will she be my false alibi, you mean?” Michaela snaps. Wes wants to scream at Connor—do not bring Kate into this, do not ask Michaela to bring Kate into this. Poor Kate Kessem, Michaela’s cheerful fiancée who was always bringing them takeout during the endless nights in Annalise’s office, always insisting they come over for drinks, for brunch, for the small dinner parties she and Michaela liked hosting every few months. Poor Kate, who never asked questions, never raised her eyebrows, just hugged Michaela at the door and kissed her, asked her to text when she planned on being home.

Connor nods. “If it comes to that.”

“If it comes to that, and _only_ that.”  Michaela responds through clenched teeth. Wes and Laurel don’t ask what ‘that’ is, but Wes thinks he has a pretty good idea. It involves a hundred subpoenas and the threat of 25 to life.

Connor nods again and they lapse into silence, all of them shifting from foot to foot as they gradually drift farther and farther away from the pyre, up the hill towards the road. They don’t say anything, just move in a group, too scared to pull away from each other. Halfway up the hill, Laurel stumbles and Wes grabs her hand to help her up. She doesn’t let go, just leans into him, shaking like a leaf.

“Wait.” Wes says at the lights from the road come into view. The road itself is empty—the final stand between the campus and the woods beyond—but the light from the great bonfire flickers in the distance, the shouts and whooping from the undergrads echoing back even this far. “We can’t all emerge at once, that’s suspicious.”

“What, four grad students emerging from the woods looking shifty-eyed and out of breath at midnight a mile away from the party where literally _every other person_ on campus is? What’s suspicious about that?” Connor’s voice is biting, stretched too thin in all the wrong directions. He’s taken off a glove so he can gnaw at his pinkie nail, the rest already bloody and bitten to the quick.

Michaela throws him a look, her jaw clenched all tight. She opens her mouth to get into it with him but Laurel jumps in first.

“Wes is right. There’ll be patrol cars out here and we can’t risk it. Better if we go separately.”

“So that’s it, then?” Michaela looks to each of them, her hands clenched into tight fists close to her body. “We just go home?”

“I mean—“ Laurel gapes a little, looks to Connor and Wes for assistance, but Wes just stares back unhelpfully and Connor looks at the ground. “What else are we going to do?” It sounds so pathetic, so inadequate, but she’s right. The body is burned, the evidence is gone. And now all that’s left is to live with it. 

“We can talk on Monday.” Wes says, already rocking back on his heels, ready to venture farther through the woods, parallel to the road, alone. “Until then just...try and calm down. We’ve done what we can. “

“Is that enough, though?” Connor asks. His breath plumes out in chilly bursts, his face hazy through the steam. Wes has seen his face, seen all their faces, a million times but here, shrouded in the dark, lit on odd angles by the bright November moon, they may as well be strangers from another time, another life. Wes nearly wants to laugh at the insanity of it all--he used to be such a good kid.

“It’s got to be enough.” Laurel’s voice is reedy and tense. “Or else—“

“For fuck’s sake, Laurel,” Connor chokes out. “Please, god, don’t say it.”

She doesn’t.

Before they all part ways—Wes up to cross the road towards his campus apartment, Michaela and Laurel to the west, Connor to the east—they leave each other with a few parting rules. Text when you get home. Burn your clothes, take the hottest shower you can stand. Don’t contact the others if you can help it. But if Annalise calls, pick up your goddamn phone. Try and get some sleep. And lastly, most fucking importantly--Do not. Tell. Asher.

[***]

 

Wes succeeds at everything but the sleeping. He stands in the shower for what feels like hours, running up his water bill past what he can afford, he’s sure. There’s no literal blood on his hands but that almost makes it worse, robs him of the cathartic act of washing himself clean. After that, he tries to sleep, gives up on that after about twenty five minutes, and sits in his ratty living room armchair in just his sweatpants, with a weak hot toddy in a chipped blue coffee mug and a textbook open in front of him.

Normally, C _ases and Materials on Criminal Law, 6 th Ed._ Is enough to knock him out but tonight all it does is make his hands shake, his head hurt, so he tosses it aside in favor of re-reading the last Harry Potter book, which, as much as it makes him feel 10 years old, is comforting and familiar in a way he really, really needs right now.

He’s just passed the Death Eaters’ attack on Bill Weasley’s wedding when his phone buzzes, harsh against the cheap glass of his coffee table. He checks the text.

CONNOR WALSH  
11-16-14 02:13  
I’m coming over.

It’s not a question, and even if it was, it would be rhetorical, so Wes sends back “See you in 20,” and gets up to make another hot toddy and put on a proper shirt. Soon, there’s a knock at the door, rapid and demanding, and Wes opens it on Connor standing there, shoulders hunched up and his hands deep in his pockets. There are dark circles underneath his eyes like tire treads against his pale skin, his mouth bitten and tight. He looks tired, fragile, like he’s held together with chicken wire. Jesus, if that’s how Connor looks, Wes is glad he hasn’t had a chance to check a mirror.

He holds the mug out and Connor accepts it immediately, taking a brief moment to ask “Is there alcohol in this?” and waiting for Wes’ confirmation before taking a long sip, his shoulders sagging. He side steps Wes into the apartment, stooping to untie the laces on his loafers because of course Connor wears shoes that are too nice to be toed off. Someone snorts and Wes looks up to see Rebecca leaning in her doorway across the hall, her arms crossed and her hip popped, still coping an attitude this late at night.

She gives him a wry smile, the sort of smile that he supposes it’s natural to give your neighbor when you see them inviting some handsome guy into their apartment at 2 in the morning, but he shakes his head at her, hoping to convey that no, no, it really wasn’t like that. At least, it wasn’t like that right now. Was it like that right now? He doesn’t know, doesn’t want to think about it, so he shuts the door in Rebecca’s still-smirking face.

Connor’s shucked all of his outerwear off, neatly placing his jacket across the back of one of the chairs in Wes’ sad excuse for a dining table area, his scarf and mittens draped over it. He stands there in the middle of the bare living room, his button down shirt still tucked into his dark pants, his toes in their matching socks curling and uncurling against the rug. Everything about Connor is so precise and lovely, his shirt collars always starched, his pants always pleated. He owes and utilizes multiple (multiple!) sets of cufflinks and knows how to tie a necktie all the different ways—Prince Albert, and four-in-hand and Windsor, half Windsor, three quarter Windsor or whatever the hell. Tried to teach Wes how to do it once before giving up ten minutes in, declaring him a hopeless case.

“Hey.” Wes says softly. He isn’t sure where to go, what to do with his hands, so he stays by the door, both hands curled around his mug. Every other time they’ve been here, it’s been a very different objective. Wasn’t much real talking— idle back and forth over some miscellaneous bottle of liquor or takeout and their textbooks, mostly bitching about work or school or Annalise busting their balls every minute of every day—before they got into it, mouth on mouth, fumbling at each other’s buttons and belt buckles, Wes getting his fingers caught on Connor’s fancy fucking tie knots as they tripped their way into his bedroom. 

So here, with all the lights on, the weight of what they’ve done heavy on their backs, and the both of them tired, just so fucking tired, Wes doesn’t know where to go from here. Where Connor wants him to go from here. He starts for his phone, still on the coffee table. “Do you want me to call Laurel and…” Connor puts up a hand to stop him.

“No, god, please no.” he says entirely too quickly. “Not that I—Not that they aren’t part of this but just…not right now.” Wes watches him as he meanders towards the armchair, reaching down to grab the Harry Potter book. “Re-read, I assume?” Connor’s smiling but there’s nothing behind it, all empty charming lips and teeth and eyes.

Wes snorts. “Allowing myself a break from this page turner.” He kicks a toe against _Cases and Materials on Criminal Law_ , which had been casted to the floor in frustration ages ago. “Why’d you come by?” he asks. “Not that I mind,” he adds hastily.

Connor collapses on the couch in a very un-Connor-like fashion. “Besides the obvious reasons?” he quips, curling into the poorly-upholstered cushions. “Just…needed someone to sit with. I was going nuts, sitting around, and giving myself the creeps. I know we said not to contact each other but—“ Wes nods, settling down next to him. Michaela was with Kate and Laurel was with her sister so at least they had people to distract them, another body to remind them that weren’t alone in the universe, that other people’s lives were still going on outside this.

Wes nods. “Well, if we’re both going to sit around being scared shitless and miserable, might as well do it together.”

They sit in silence for a while, sipping at their drinks, close enough for them to lean in and rest some weight on each other. Connor slumps low enough to rest his cheek against Wes’ shoulder and he sighs, one of those awful, full body sighs of exhaustion and stress and frayed nerves. “We’re going to jail.” He says, his voice barely a whisper.

“We’re not going to jail.”

“Yeah, we are.”

Wes makes a little noise of frustration. He can’t deal with this right now—he’s got enough of his own horrible internal shit to deal with without Connor losing it on him. “Stop saying that.”

Connor’s voice piques as he pulls away, his back tensing, and Wes can see all the vertebrae go sharp underneath his thin shirt. “Why? It’s true. You know it is.” He’s got this wild look in his eye, the same one he had when they were in the car driving to the woods.

Wes swallows around the lump in his throat, grips the top of one of the couch cushions just to have something to dig in to. “We cleaned the weapon, we burned our clothes, no one saw us. We destroyed the body. We destroyed everything. They’ll never know.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Wes!” Connor yells, and Wes jumps with the shock of it. He’s never heard Connor raise his voice. “It’s not a fucking checklist! We don’t go through the motions and suddenly there’s no way it could ever be pinned on us. There’s…There’s shit we can’t control.” His voice breaks, he’s shaking, and Wes desperately wants to reach out and touch him, even just a hand on his shoulder, his arm. “There’ll be arterial spray in the house that we can’t account for. The rug might not’ve entirely burned. And the policeman…Jesus Christ, the policeman.” He turns, suddenly vicious, suddenly mean. “You do understand that there’s a witness who can testify to us carrying out a fucking _rolled up rug_ out of the scene of the crime, right? If they ask him…if they ask him, oh my god—“ His fingers flutter to his lips as he stares blankly at the coffee table. Wes grips the couch harder, his head spinning, the full weight of what they had done crashing into him. Oh Jesus, they killed him, they killed Tom. She asked them to kill him and they did it, didn’t even question it, not really—

“We’re going to jail!” Connor exclaims again and not entirely sadly. There was an edge of laughter to it that built with every word, his smile stretched and inhuman, his head bent to look Wes in the eye. “Yeah, Wes? They’re going to catch up with us. And they’re going to put us on trial and not even Annalise will be able to get us out of that one.” He runs a shaking hand through his hair while Wes sits, speechless, grasping for something, anything to say. “We’re going to jail, we’re going to jail for the rest of our lives,” His face was falling fast now, the hysteria wringing out of him just as quickly as it had come. He drops his face into his hands. “Oh my god” he moans desolately. “Oh my fucking god.”

“Hey, hey—“ Wes says softly, putting an arm around Connor’s hunched back, pulling in close. “Listen, don’t…don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.” He wants to kick himself—there’s nothing he can say that won’t sound horribly, staggeringly inadequate. He doesn’t know when this role fell to him, the caretaker, the appeaser, but he’s not cut out for it. How can he tell Connor its okay when he’s been walking around with his heart in his throat for the past 72 hours, when he’s cried out of frustration and fear three times since they burned the body, when he can’t keep his hands from shaking well enough to hold a pencil? It’s so insufficient, _he’s_ so insufficient, and it’s awful that they got stuck with a shitty mediator like him. _I’m sorry_ , he wants to say. _I’m so fucking sorry_. But he doesn’t, instead--

“Connor, listen to me,” He says, half into Connor’s hair. “No one’s going to jail. No one’s getting caught. And no one else is going to die, okay? We’re done with it. It’s over. I promise. You've got to stop obsessing, you're going to drive yourself crazy. ” Connor’s hands still flutter around his face, his fingers against his mouth, then knuckling at his eyes, then pushing back into his hair again, his forehead shiny with cold sweat. He gasps, takes in a few deep breaths, gasps some more, wheezing, but that look in his eye is gone, and there’s no malice in his voice when he speaks.

“Thank you.” He mumbles, and then, “Shit, I’m so sorry, Wes. You didn’t—last thing you needed was me freaking out on you, when you’ve got—“ he trails off, his fingers back to his mouth so he can bite at the bloody nails.

Wes shrugs. “Like I said—if we’re both gonna be scared and miserable, right?” He offers some approximation of a comforting smile and Connor returns it meekly, lets Wes guide him back to sit against the couch, his whole body unraveling against it. Wes sags against him, his heart pounding, his head swimming. He should’ve made a stronger drink, he muses. Should’ve just knocked himself out with it when he had the chance.

“Did you ever picture, in a million years, that this is where we would end up?” Connor asks softly, curling one hand around Wes’ arm.

“We did what we had to do.”

“But did we really?”

It figures, Wes thinks, that it would take a murder for Connor to reevaluate his moral standards.

“Yeah. We really did.” Wes lets himself sink a little, rest his cheek against the top of Connor’s head. His hair is ridiculously soft and Wes tries to focus on that, on the strands tickling his nose, the clean scent of it, rather than the stone in his stomach, the pounding between his temples. Ever since he entered Annalise’s classroom, he hasn’t known what it’s like not to be tired, not to be aching all the time.

“Do you think it’ll get better?” Connor doesn’t elaborate but Wes understands what he means. This was the life they led now—every day from here on out would start with waking up from one nightmare into an even greater one.

“I guess we’re going to have to wait and see,” is all Wes says. He doesn’t want to make a prediction he can’t back up, doesn’t want to speak for the dead.  Connor picks his head up off Wes’ shoulder but doesn’t move away, their faces inches from each other. _Oh,_ Wes thinks distantly, _maybe it_ was _like that, then._ And then Connor kisses him, and the whole world goes spotty behind his closed eyelids. Connor’s mouth is cracked and a little dry, but it’s good, still good, especially when Connor starts nipping at Wes’ lip, his thumb brushing circles against the skin of Wes’ arm. Wes makes a noise in the back of his throat and Connor echoes it, fisting a hand in the collar of Wes’ t-shirt. He lets himself get lost in it, the taste of Connor’s mouth, the hammering of his heart—for a good reason, finally. But then someone’s lip splits—his or Connor’s, he doesn’t know—and there’s the faintest taste of blood on his tongue but that’s all he needs to jolt out of it, pulling away so suddenly that Connor half-chases his mouth before pulling back, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, and Wes laughs dryly despite himself. Where the hell is he even supposed to begin?

“I just—we don’t have, if you don’t want.  You’re upset and I don’t—“

Connor smiles, a real smile for the first time in what seems like weeks. “Are you trying not to take advantage of me, Wes?” Wes ducks his head, blushing, and that gets a laugh from Connor, squeezing Wes’ arm. “I’m good, I promise—relative to the circumstances, at least. Are you?”

Wes takes a deep breath. It’s so, so beyond fucked up—they burned a corpse today, wiped his blood off a trophy, and went home like everything was okay. He feels like things should be different, that he shouldn’t be able to just…carry on like he did before. He thought his life would be split into two sections, pre-murder and post-murder, and in a way it has, but not at all like he suspected. It doesn’t seem logical that he could do what he did and end up back here, on his couch with Connor inches away, blood in his mouth and his palms burning with the desire to touch. There was no guide to this, no handbook for how to get past your first murder, but maybe this was part of it—to swing back into some twisted sense of reality full force, to gorge yourself on it. Maybe he was just more twisted than he thought, or maybe Connor just had that effect, lighting something instinctual and base inside of him.

 “Wes. Please.” Connor says softly, one hand on Wes’ jaw, the other still wound in his collar. “I know it’s fucked up but I just…I need to not think for a while.” And yeah. Yeah, Wes could stand to not think for a while too.

He kisses back and misses a little, Connor’s teeth knocking into his lip again for his trouble, but they straighten out, kissing deep and proper. It’s different from the other times, slower, more tentative. He barely registers Connor’s hand sliding around until it’s cupping the back of his neck. Connor’s still shaking a bit and Wes runs a hand down to the small of his back almost subconsciously, shifting in his seat to pull him closer. Connor kisses the same way he does everything else, precise and perfect, but it’s never been like this before—Wes can barely even think, much less explain it--and Connor has to pull away for a second, breathing hard, starting at Wes like he’s just woken up from a dream. Wes doesn’t want to think about what that means so he pulls Connor back in by his tie and when Connor smiles, Wes can feel it against his teeth.  But then Connor’s got his hand under Wes’ shirt, the dull ache of his bitten fingernails pressing into Wes’ skin making his dick jump and well, that’s it for going slow.

They fumble to Wes’ bedroom the same as always, but at least by now they know the way well enough to do it in the dark without any major injuries. The backs of Wes’ knees hit the bedspring sooner than he expected and he goes tumbling onto the bed. Connor scrambles to straddle him, knees bracketing Wes’ hips as he works at the buttons of his oxford, taking a second to yank impatiently on the hem of Wes’ t-shirt and Wes sits up to tug it off over his head.

“C’mere.” Connor mutters after discarding his button down off the side of the bed, leaning down to kiss him again, harder this time, and then pulling away to work at his neck, sucking into the underside of his jaw against his pulse point, and Wes arches up into the touch, making a noise that's embarrassingly close to a full on moan. He can feel the hard line of Connor’s dick pressing into the crease of his hip, and he wonders when Connor’s going to get his pants off. He tries to ask, but Connor just pins him to the bed and rolls his hips down slowly, his breath hot and uneven on Wes’ cheek, the friction just this side of not enough. “Make that noise again.” he demands, and Wes does as he’s told.

Connor reaches between them to the waistband of Wes’ sweatpants, his thin fingers skirting the elastic before dipping under and curling around the base of him, rubbing his thumb underneath the head. Wes keens, his hand tightening in the short hairs at the nape of Connor’s neck. Connor does nothing, just keeps rubbing against the nerves there until Wes spasms, gripping at his arm.

“Jesus, please,“ he mumbles, “C’mon, Connor, c’mon—“ Connor kisses him again, nipping at his lip til Wes can taste the faint tinge of blood in his mouth again, which makes his cock twitch for reasons that are insane and don’t even make sense. He’s so close to just rolling them over and taking care of things himself when Connor relents, stilling his hand and pulling off to mouth at his neck, his collarbone, sucking a bruise there that won’t fade for days. Wes takes the opportunity to shuck off his sweatpants, tossing them somewhere off the edge of the bed.

“What do you want me to do?” Conor asks as Wes returns the favor and marks up his collarbone too. Wes fists at the sheets, grinding his teeth together to keep from screaming. Everything, all of him, it’s so built up and he might go crazy from it soon if Connor doesn’t fucking _do something_.

“Whatever you need.” Wes tells him, and Connor kisses him hard for that, panting against his mouth.

“Okay.” He says, a little breathless. “Okay, good.”

He shifts downward til he’s between Wes’ thighs, his stubble scratching against the thin skin there, and lays his sharp teeth into the protruding curve of Wes’ pelvic bone, holds his hips down roughly when Wes writhes in response. Wes can feel the wetness on his stomach where he’s leaking and then—oh, god—Connor’s tongue where he licks it off, humming against his skin. Wes’ panting audibly now, his skin sticky with sweat, and he looks down to see Connor grinning up at him, his incisors glinting in the dim light. It’s maddening, Wes thinks. Completely maddening.

Connor starts to suck him off, slow at first with just the head and then deeper, his mouth stretching around it. It’s been a while since they’ve done this so it takes Wes a second to recalibrate and adjust to the feeling, the head of his dick moving against the slick roof of Connor’s mouth, Connor’s long, thin fingers twisting along the base. He looks down to watch Connor’s cheeks hollow out, his eyelashes fanning out against his cheekbones, his mouth slick and wet with spit.

“Uh…” he breathes, high in the back of his throat and Connor moans in response, taking as much as he can and choking on it a little. He wriggles a hand between the mattress and the small of Wes’ back and presses up, trying to get Wes to thrust. Wes wants to, but doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t know if he can give him more but that’s the thing—Connor can always do more. Connor lives for more. So Wes arches up, his hips rolling, and he lets Connor swallow him down, throat tight around him as Wes fucks his mouth in sloppy, uneven thrusts and fuck, fuck, he’s close, he’s so close. He gasps out something unintelligible, squeezing at Connor’s arm and then he’s there, his whole body going tight as he comes and comes and comes and it feels so good he can barely take a breath.

He comes to a little embarrassed—he’s too old to be finishing that quickly from a blowjob—but that clears up right away when he opens his eyes to see Connor in his lap, towering over him, working at his belt and then his zipper, his gaze heavy and dark and pinning Wes to the mattress just as much as his body weight is. He finally gets his cock free and wraps a hand around it, his breath going uneven with relief as he chokes around a moan, head bowed, and shoulders tense. There’s something so obscene about Connor, perfect, precise Connor, panting above him with his trousers undone, his dick hanging from his briefs, hard in his palm, and Wes slides his hands up Connor’s thighs, gripping them tight.

Connor doesn’t need much to slide into it, pumping into his palm in measured thrusts, shaking with the effort of holding himself back. He does this all the time—sets rules for himself, or asks Wes to do it for him so he can see how well he can follow them, how long he can take it before he has to break and go at it like he needs. He’s fast to lose this time, his hand quickening, his grip going tight, faster and faster until he’s panting, his mouth going slack and Wes can’t stop staring at his heavy lower lip, his lidded eyes. “Ah…ah, fuck, _fuck_.” he groans, his hips snapping and then his whole body jerks, his eyes rolling up to the whites as he comes, shooting onto Wes’ chest.

He settles down in degrees, first leaning forward to brace a hand against the headboard, then rolling off onto his stomach to stretch out on the other side of the bed, humming indulgently. The only sounds in the room are their twin breaths, slightly out of synch, and the clank of the ancient radiator as it turns on. Wes reaches off the side of the bed and gropes for something, comes up with a discarded white sock and uses that to clean the smears of come off of his chest—something he is also way too old to be doing, but fuck it. When he looks back up, Connor’s propped up on his elbows, examining the bite marks on the headboard.

“Any of these mine?” he teases, tracing his fingers over one of them.

“Not yet.” Wes says back. He’s normally never that forward, with Connor or anyone else, but he’s still loose and sated, his whole body heavy, and with Connor, he never knows where the line is, if there’s even a line at all or if they’ve already crossed it. Connor just grins absently, resting his head against the headboard, looking blissfully hazed and out of it which is something Wes can definitely commiserate with. He wonders if he should reach out for him, to pull him in closer but hesitates. Connor doesn’t seem one for pillow talk but at the same time—and just as he’s about to try for it, Connor rolls even further away onto his back, doing an exaggerated, arched back-full body stretch that’s at least a little bit for show and sits up, muttering “I should probably get going."

Wes instinctively checks his bedside clock. 3:47 AM—Jesus, yeah, yeah, probably for the best. He beats off any wavering disappointment and gets up as well, groping on the floor for his sweatpants and pulling them on as Connor reassembles himself on the other side of the bed. When he’s finally done, he looks exactly as he did when he first came to the apartment—except, Wes notes with a little thrill of triumph, the flush on his face and the faint bruise that sticks out just a bit at the edge of his open collar.

Wes walks him to the door, waits for him to put on his coat, his mittens, his scarf, his loafers that were too nice to be toed off, and sees him out. At the last second, he stops him, stepping out into the foyer after him.

“Hey,” He says. Connor only side-eyes him. “It’s going to be okay.” And there’s that smile again, so faint he barely catches it.

“I guess we’re going to have to wait and see.” Connor parrots Wes’ own words from earlier back to him, which Wes figures he probably deserves. “But thanks for letting me come over. It—“ his mouth screws up a little and he looks away. “It helped.”

Wes’ heart constricts momentarily, a painful ache in his chest that he hopes is just unfavorable emotions and not an impending stress-induced heart attack. “Good. Me too. Text when you get home, yeah?”

Connor nods, waves a gloved hand, and then he’s gone, leaving Wes alone on the landing, with not even Rebecca to lean against her doorframe and silently judge him. He goes back inside, not knowing how the fuck to feel right about now, and finishes off the rest of his whiskey making himself another hot toddy, significantly stronger than the last. He ends up curling back into the armchair with the rest of Harry Potter, and it's only after he's finished that he finally--finally--falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> [@ tumblr](http://changelinglouis.tumblr.com)


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